The general availability of Niagara Framework® 4.9 is just around the corner in late June. This update to Tridium's software is designed to promote customer success in smart building and IoT deployments. From the largest enterprise customers to small single-site building owners, Niagara 4 end-users can directly access, analyze and act on a wide range of operational data in an easy, customized and secure way. Niagara 4.9 brings exciting new features that continue to evolve Niagara Framework in terms of cyber security, visualization, rapid deployment, edge control, connectivity, certification and IT compliance.
NEW IN NIAGARA 4.9
Single Sign-On with Niagara as an Identity Provider: Securely navigate Niagara Stations using Single Sign-On (SSO) with Niagara as the identity provider (IdP), instead of manually configuring and managing an external IdP. SSO allows users to login into one station and access all other connected stations via a browser without having to re-authenticate.
Enhanced Graphics with Tag-Based Visualization: Create a graphical user interface (GUI) for your Niagara station based entirely on tags. Tag based PX bindings allows you to create graphics and assign them semantic tags from the dictionary of your choice once, and then reuse any number of times.
Edge 10 – IO Expansion: Edge 10 now supports two (2) IO-R-34 modules and allows control of both onboard and remote IO with ACE. Utilize the Edge 10 for more applications by enabling critical control of field equipment that require additional IO modules. License refresh required.
Cloud Connectivity: New connectivity options reduce the time and complexity of integrating Niagara with cloud solutions:
Updates to Niagara MQTT driver to support AWS (Amazon Web Services) Authentication.
New JSON Toolkit makes it easy to construct bespoke messages into required formats for cloud communication.
Improved Edge Tools: The latest updates make it easier to upgrade installed application templates and provide greater flexibility when defining and configuring peer device and/or station proxies upon installation of an application template.
Niagara Proxy Service Enhancements: The Niagara Proxy Service now supports HTTPS connections and a digest authentication scheme, facilitating improved IT compliance and enabling modern web services that utilize secure connectivity behind corporate IT proxy servers.
Niagara Security History Log: The Security History Log provides users with an understanding of who, or what, is logging into or changing security related settings on your Niagara instance.
Third-Party Module Signing: The security posture of any Niagara installation is stronger when all third-party modules are signed. Niagara now enforces this best practice and makes administrators aware of unsigned modules, automatically eliminating the risk that modules may have been tampered with or come from an untrustworthy source. To allow developers sufficient time to transition to signing their code, this feature began its rollout in Niagara 4.8. In Niagara 4.9, all modules must be signed by valid, trusted certificate (may be self-signed).
ACE on Third-Party Hardware: Originally released in 4.8 for Edge 10, Niagara's ACE deterministic engine enables users to make changes to logic and load the updated code without a complete shutdown. When shut-down is necessary, start-up is faster with ACE. Niagara 4.9 gives third-party vendors creating controllers powered by Niagara the option to include ACE on their platforms. ACE is available to partners as Early Access to be officially released in 4.10. Look for announcements from your favorite ‘Powered By Niagara’ controller as ACE is rolled out.
HTML5 Video Streaming: Milestone and Axis video drivers have been updated to eliminate java dependencies in the browser. View video streams associated with alarms directly from the Niagara alarm console and add video links to your system graphics to enhance building intelligence. With HTML5 streaming, mobile devices can also access these video streams, enabling remote users to quickly assess situations in their facility and react accordingly.
Updated OS and Enterprise Applications: In Niagara 4.9, we have added support for a number of new operating systems and enterprise applications (new additions in bold type). As with all software products, we must also deprecate support for some operating systems and enterprise applications. Here is the list of deprecated products that will not be supported as of Niagara 4.9.
Cyber Security Update: Niagara 4.9 includes a fix to a TLS timeout issue that could occur during a failed TLS handshake.
If you are a Conserve It Niagara Framework Product Partner and would like to find out more, please contact your Conserve It Account Manager.
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